Miles J. Stanford
American writer

Miles J. Stanford (January 4, 1914 – September 21, 1999) was an American Christian author best known for his classic collection on spirituality, The Green Letters, published in 1964.
Biography
Born in 1914 in Wheaton, Illinois, and with little or no Sunday school background, his early life centered around baseball, golf, and alcohol to excess.
On September 19, 1940, Stanford became a [believer] and after that began studying the Bible eight to ten hours daily. He joined the US Army Engineers in 1942 and served overseas as a cartographer for a year in England and nearly two years in Germany. During this time he developed an ongoing correspondence with other Christians so that in late 1945, when he was discharged from the Army, he was writing to nearly 200 people.
From 1946 to 1955, his study and correspondence continued to expand. In 1951, he met and married Cornelia de Villiers Schwab in Brooklyn, New York. Cornelia shared a similar desire for personal growth and to help other Christians develop spiritually. Subsequently, Miles and Cornelia moved to Warrenville, Illinois and assumed heavy responsibilities in a local Bible church, Pleasant Hill Community Church. The correspondence rapidly expanded during the next seven years.
The public source identifies “Miles J. Stanford” as american writer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Miles, Stanford and American.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6851428. VIAF identifies the subject as 163994802. The Library of Congress control number is n50023251. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914, 1999, 1964 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “Miles J. Stanford” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.